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Dear father I have recd
3 letters from you & mother, 1 in April, 1 in May, &
1 July 4th 1879. They find me in only tolerable
health. My family are all well. I just got home from Cannionville
& received your letters. I am very sorry to hear of your
bad
accident & also of Emma's as mother states to me in her letter.
Times are very dull here. I am in tending to start today out
in
the mountains, a place I know of where I think I can make small
wages until next winter. You ask me how we done, we done
well for the chance we had, scarse of watter & we did not
get our machinery to work & it cost us very heavy we had
not pipe
enough & it was to late in the season to get more so we mined
on the CW style but we paid most all our debts on the claims.
1
more winter as good as last will help me out of my tight place
if I can stand it till then. I have offered land at less than
government price to get money to help you in your old days, land
that was worth 40 per acre wont sell for hardly anything
now. We are looking for a change if they start the railroad building.
Times will get better every day. They will have to start
soon or their charter will run out. I have tried ever since I
came home to sell or some way to make you comfortable in your
old
days. I may succeed yet. A very little change would bring it
about & I will strive all I can possibly do. Gold mining
is the
hardest work on the constitution their is. I am under the weather
some & I start to have my family in the wilds of Ogn to be
gone all summer. I don't like to do it but I can't help it. I
must do so to get along. Their is a great many rattlesnakes &
wild
varmints makes it dangerous for children. To mother I would be
almost inhuman not to help father all I could. Under the
circumstances I will do the best I can god willing. More I cannot
do.
To father and mother both yours
truly J.W. Goff
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